Free & Easy!

I recently found some pretty green bottles and instantly knew that I wanted to use them in the kitchen for the hand and dish soap. I lucked out and the top from the store dish soap bottle fit the glass bottle perfectly. It even screwed on tight without a hassle.

The hand pump was a little more difficult. I tried a pump like the one we used on the mason jar soap bottles, but it wasn’t the right size to fit the opening. I had a small hand soap bottle in our bathroom that had a larger pump so I decided to try that. That one did fit, unfortunately the stem wasn’t long enough to reach the soap at the bottom of the bottle.

Then I remembered that we had a package of flexible straws somewhere and wondered if that might fit the pump. I dug through the cabinets and found them, then tested out the length next to the bottle. It seemed like it would work, so I pulled the old stem out of the pump and pushed the straw in. The connection was a little loose due to the flexible part of the straw, but it stayed snugly attached as I fussed with it.

Since it seemed pretty secure, I put everything together and gave the pump a couple pushes. It took a few before the soap started flowing, but when it did it worked just fine. It’s been about a week now and it’s still working great, so I guess my little DIY rig is good enough. And it’s a whole lot prettier than the plastic store bottles!

I’m not crazy about the different colors of the two tops, but they work and I’m probably the only one who notices it. Plus the bottles fit the little tray I’d been using to hold their plastic predecessors as if it was made just for them, leaving just enough room for the sponge. But the best part about the whole project is that it was 100% free! Now if only I could get all my projects to be this affordable and easy. 🙂